Bellarine Peninsula

[2] Early European settlements were initially centred on wheat and grain agriculture, before the area became a popular tourist destination with most visitors arriving by paddle steamer on Port Phillip in the late 19th century.

[5] The area of Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula was originally occupied by Indigenous Australian clans of the Wadawurrung nation, prior to European settlement in the early 19th century.

[7] In 1835, John Batman used Indented Head as his base camp,[8] leaving behind several employees whilst he returned to Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) for more supplies and his family.

In this same year, Buckley surrendered to the party led by John Helder Wedge and was later pardoned by Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Arthur, and subsequently given the position of interpreter to the natives.

By the 1870s, excursion traffic to the peninsula commenced, with tourists travelling from Melbourne by paddle steamers to enjoy fishing and swimming by the bay, with the coastal towns being major holiday resorts.

[12] In recent years, with improved roads, the peninsula has become popular with people employed in Geelong, with population growth in towns such as Leopold, Drysdale and Ocean Grove.

[citation needed] The Bellarine Peninsula is a gently to moderately undulating landform that protrudes in an east and north-easterly direction into Port Phillip.

It is surrounded by Corio Bay and the Outer Harbour to the north, Port Phillip to the north-east and east, The Rip to the south-east and Bass Strait to the south.

A narrow strip of deeply weathered Cretaceous Otway Group rocks occurs in outcrop along the southern edge of the Curlewis Monocline, which forms the northern boundary of the peninsula.

Some of the more significant and historical shipwrecks include; Black Rock on the southern coast (near Breamlea) is the location of the main ocean outfall for Geelong's sewage.